APCUG ReportsJuly-September 2007

When the Tulsa Computer Society was at its largest, in the late 90s, we had
about 30 Special Interest Groups (SIGs). One of them was a Computer Refurbishing
SIG, and while we had several people that would drop by to help from time to
time, there were three main people involved: Gary Ludwig, Jim Erwin, and myself.
Gary came up with a fantastic idea called the Master CD. It was one CD with the
necessary software on it to install eight different variations on operating
systems:

XT/286 OPENDOS image, 17mb

W31, Win3.1 minimum install, 16mb

W31_286,Win3.1 286 system install, 25mb

W31_95, Win3.1, 95 lookalike, 18mb

W95a, Win95a, 45mb

W95a w/602Pro0ffice & AntiVir, 80mb

W95b, Win95b, 80mb

W98 w/Iview, Pstudio, 195mb

Yes I know those are very old, but this was something in the mid to late 90s,
not yesterday. At that time it was a big deal, because we were still getting
8086 and 80286 systems in that needed DOS, and most of the machines either
needed Win 3.1 or Win 95. Win 98 was the "new" system at the time. And Gary's
invention meant that regardless of what level machine we were working on, there
was one CD that would handle all of them.

There was no room on the CD for anything else, so we had a separate CD with
public domain or shareware application software (word processors, games,
utilities, bibles, etc.) The CDs were continually getting scratched, and we had
to make new ones from the master set, so I came up with the idea of putting the
Master CD and my application CD on a 2 Gig hard drive that we could temporarilly
cable up to the machine we were working on. Then Jim discovered Ghost that we
could use to install images of various configurations of OS/application software
to machines, and we had a second hard drive with Ghost and its images (we tried
a couple of similar programs, but preferred Ghost the best). So now we had two
different hard drives. One we would use to customize a machine, and another to
install copies of a configuration on multiple identical or similar machines. I
then came up with the idea of using Partition Magic to allow me to have both
capabilities on the same hard drive (we called that machine the Image Machine.)

For several years the three of us worked together. One of us would come up with
an idea to improve what we were doing, and then another of us would come up with
a way to improve even further on it, and after several years of doing that we
really had a good way of refurbishing computers. We shared our ideas with other
computer refurbishing projects, including one run by a Chicasaw Indian tribe in
Ada, Oklahoma. One day I got a call from Larry Yost in Nebraska. He had heard
from the Indians in Ada that we refurbished computers. His computer had broken,
and he wanted to know if we could give him a replacement. I told him we could
not ship computers but that if he could find someone here to ship it to him we
might be able to help him out. However, if he wanted to learn how to refurbish
computers, and if he could come down to Tulsa, we would show him how to do it
and give him the tools (an Image Machine) to do it with. He took me up on the
offer and came down two or three times, picking up more Image Machines each
time, and he even persuaded me to come up there for a month -- something I had
never done before (or since), because I am disabled and it is very hard for me
to travel. But he was able to get a refurbishing project going in Superior,
Nebraska.

When I was in Superior helping to train their people, I saw how they had workers
from several of the small rural towns around Superior. They told me that when it
snowed it might be a week or more before people in those areas could make it
into Superior, so they wanted every volunteer to have his/her own Image Machine,
so they could work on refurbishing when snowed in at home. The problem was the
Image machine required an 8 Gig drive at the time, and we did not have enough to
make one for each volunteer. It took me a couple of days thinking how to do it,
but I came up with a way to do most of what they really needed done on a 2 to 4
Gig drive. When I got back to Tulsa I found that the volunteer I had left in
charge while I was gone had donated out all of the machines we had in my garage,
and he found a donor that had a bunch of machines, but they wanted them
refurbished and given back to them. So rather than bring all of them to my house
he took an Image machine to their building and worked on things there. There
were a few things he found he needed, like drivers (since his work area did not
include access to the internet). So when I got back to Tulsa I combined what I
had done in Nebraska, with the things Lee needed but did not have, and came up
with a new machine which we call the Road Warrior. It contains a search tool
for drivers, a copy of our procedures manual (which is online, but if you don't
have a connection to the net you can't get to it), and a few other things, like
the ability to make any of the floppy disks we use.

If we can come up with this many improvements to the procedures just by having
Gary, Jim, Larry, Lee, and Don working together, just think what we can do if we
get all of the great minds in all of our User Groups working together.

In the Jerry Award 2004 contest, I instituted the HOW category, in which a
community service project would be judged not just on WHAT they did, and how
well they described WHAT they did, but also on HOW they did what they did, and
on how well they described HOW they did it. We had an Ongoing Projects category
and a New Projects category, just like we always did, but each had prizes
awarded not just for WHAT they did, but also prizes for HOW they did it.

Different people were responsible for the 2005 and 2006 contests, and they
maintained HOW, but for some reason, they made it a separate category, and they
had three: Ongoing Projects, New Projects, and How.

There are some very good community service projects operated by User Groups, and
when you read what they are doing you might think "I wish we could do something
like that here." But most of the time that thought is going to be followed by
"but I don't know how we would ever get something like that started; we just
don't have the people to be able to put something like that together," and so
you don't do it. I want to tell you that you are wrong. You do have the people
that can do it, you just need a little help doing it.

As of the 2000 census, there were 2,055 people, 980 households, and 598 families
residing in Superior, Nebraska, and yet the Superior Pawnee Computer Society
just shipped two forty foot containers, with about 600 computers and monitors,
plus a lot of books, clothing, and other material to Africa, to be used in
Southern Sudan and a number of other African countries, plus they have probably
provided an equal or greater number of refurbished computers all over Kansas,
Nebraska, and South Dakota.

So you think your User Group is too small, or you live in an area that would not
support a major community service project? Is your town smaller than 2,055
people, or is your vision just smaller than Larry's. There were not a lot of
computers to be refurbished in Superior, but Larry did not let that stop him. He
got computers from a hospital in Hastings, worked through the YWCA in Adams
County to sponsor collection days for old computers, collected books with the
help of the Evangelical Free Church in Grand Island, and eventually he had
satellite refurbishing projects in several larger cities in Nebraska, including
Omaha and Lincoln (the state capital). You don't have to be in a huge city to do
a huge amount of good work. You just have to have a huge desire to help others.

You can go to http://comservice.apcug.org/ and see a lot of very valuable links
to information about Computer Refurbishing and Community Service. One of them is
http://comservice.apcug.org/jerry.htm which contains the winners of all 9
previous Jerry Award competitions, plus beginning in 2004 it contains all of the
material submitted by every group that entered, whether they won or not. Our
effort is to build a database with information about what is being done, and how
it is being done, all over the country. I would say all over the world, except
so far only groups in the USA have entered. I personally have sent Image
Machines and Road Warriors to a number of other countries, and I would love to
see User Groups all over the world doing community service projects.

It may seem that I use Community Service and Computer Refurbishing
interchangeably. If I do, that is just because that is what the Tulsa Computer
Society's community service project is focused on, and because most of the
entries in the Jerry Award competition come from Computer Refurbishing projects.
But we have had some entries from groups that do computer training (for seniors,
or for the general public), as well as projects like “Free Wireless for Senior
Center,” Cell Phone Collection Project, Scholarship Program, Computer Mentoring
Program, etc. So the Jerry Award competition is open to all community service
projects run by User Groups.

For the 2007 Jerry Award competition we are going back to emphasizing HOW TO. We
will have categories for Ongoing Projects, Short Term Projects (that will exist
for less than a year), and for New Projects. The judges will be provided with a
ranking system where they will assign a certain number of points based on what a
group is doing. A larger number of points will be give
if their submission describes how they
do what they do, in enough detail where another group can start a similar
project in their city. Groups who have never won before will get a few extra
points to help level the playing field with established groups who "seem to win
all the time." Last year, under pressure from groups that said they did not
enter because other groups always seemed to win, they set a rule that groups
that won the previous year could not enter. We are not going to do that this
time, but groups that have won multiple times will need to do an especially good
job explaining exactly how they do what they do, in order to win this time,
since groups that have never won before will have a leg up. I believe that is
only fair.

If your project has been going on for many years, you probably have come up with
a lot of improvements in tools and techniques, just as my group has done, and we
want you to take the time to explain each of those tools and techniques, so that
others can duplicate what you are doing. And as announced earlier, since I am
encouraging other groups to do what we have done in terms of documenting exactly
how we do what we do, my group will not be entering this competition. I will be
one of the judges, and if you want to know what I will be looking for, check out
http://helpingtulsa.org/howto/.

I would like to encourage your group to build a website, just as I have done, to
document your procedures, and this will let you arrange them in a form to be
most impressive to the judges. You need to guarantee us that the website will be
maintained for at least five years. If you need space for a website, remember
APCUG provides free webspace to member User Groups. If you just do not know how
to build a website, and cannot find anyone in your group to do it, we will
accept entries in a single Microsoft Word file (or an RTF file that can be read
by MS Word). We will then do a “Save As Web Site” with the file, and the judges
will be presented a list of URLs (web addresses) to judge. Once the judging has
been finished, that list will then be added to
http://comservice.apcug.org/jerry.htm so that next year groups will be able to
see what you provided.

Please try to include every tool and technique you use in your submission, and
make it easy for another group in another city to try to duplicate what you have
done. Who knows, next year you may get extra points for each project in another
city that has been successful at duplicating what you have done.

If you have any comments on this plan, please let me know at
donsingleton@cox.net. Right now I am planning on having three or four main
judges, but I also want to ask all of the submitters (if they are willing to do
so), to judge everyone else's entry using the same point system that the main
judges will be using. You can judge your own project if you wish, but that
evaluation will not count when selecting the winners.

I am leaving things open right now for comments from everyone. Let me know if
you like this idea, what points you think should be included in the ranking
system, etc. Based on those comments I will have a webpage up by September 1 for
you to use to submit your entries. The procrastinators will have from September
1 until October 15, 2007, the absolute deadline to get their entries in. The
judging period will run from November 1 until December 15, 2007, and if you
entered and said that you would be willing to be a judge, that is when you will
be given access to a private website with all of the entries.